himself on the street and works well with Bobby, but he keeps his distance from the squad. Frank respects his privacy and doesn't want to put him in the awkward position of refusing his boss. Instead she asks, 'How's Gabby?'
His daughter has cystic fibrosis and lives with her mother in Orange County.
'Not so good. She was in the hospital Sunday night.'
Frank thinks back. 'But you were here Monday.'
'She was out by ten. We took her back to Margarite's and I stayed until she fell asleep.'
'Darcy, take the time if you need it.'
'Oh, I will,' he vows. 'Believe me.'
Frank nods. 'See you tomorrow.'
Darcy lifts his Harley helmet and she listens to him leave. She'd told Gail she'd make dinner tonight, but now that she's started on the Pryce case she'd like to get through the photographs in one sitting. Plus, Frank has been living on doughnuts and Del Taco burritos. She has no interest in cooking or eating. But drinking's another story.
Frank tries Gail's office with no luck. She dials Gail's home number and leaves a message, then leaves the same message on her cell phone—that she has to work and will be home later, sorry about dinner. Gail will probably be disappointed but not surprised. Activities planned around a homicide lieutenant's and chief coroner's schedules are always hopeful and rarely realized.
Frank is about to return to the photographs but thinks better of it. Eyeing the wall clock, she decides if she wants that drink, she'd better get it now. Gail will forgive Frank for working late, but not for stopping at the Alibi. Tucking the photos under a binder cover, Frank cradles the Pryce books under her arm like a newly sprouted appendage.
Chapter 8
Alone in a booth, Frank retrieves her stack of photographs. She gulps a double while looking at additional scene shots. From a different angle, she sees there is a mattress only a few feet from the bodies.
Wondering why the perp didn't put them there, she's again struck by the incongruity of the tenderness with which the kids were placed on a garbage pile. She surmises it is dark when he dumps the bodies, and though he may be familiar with the lot's location, he's not intimate with the interior. He doesn't know the mattress is there.
Boards, flattened boxes and sections of large appliances wedged between the remaining 2x4s create partial walls. The pseudo walls are covered inside and out with tags, taunts and warnings to stay out. Frank particularly likes TRESPASERS WILL BE SMOKT. Because the graffiti is amateurish and lacks authority, she thinks wannabe bangers with no established ties are using the gutted site as a hangout.
She writes this down even though the Pryce case doesn't appear gang-related. With a fresher case she might not bother with least likely scenarios, but on this one she has nothing to lose. On the contrary, eliminating as many possibilities as she can will narrow her search field of suspects.
Delivering Frank's second drink, the waitress warns, 'Okay. Time to order dinner.'
Frank has promised Nancy she'll eat after her first drink. Frank settles on a BLT and Nancy is satisfied. She's made a career of fussing over Frank.
Finished for the time being with the crime scene, Frank starts on the autopsy reports. Trevor Pryce is a normally developed six-year-old boy. He has numerous scrapes, scabs and contusions but none relative to his cause of death, which the reporting coroner listed as gross disarticulation at the first and second cervical discs. Torn ligaments and spiral fractures indicate the boy's head was twisted until his neck snapped.
Nancy brings Frank's sandwich, returning a moment later with a Coke. Frank would rather have a beer but doesn't want Gail to smell it on her. She picks at her French fries while searching the document for an entry that might indicate signs of a struggle or fall. There's nothing—no evidence of assault, no cranial laceration or contusions, no twist fractures. Just a broken neck.
The girl's autopsy report adds to this discrepancy, reinforcing that Ladeenia Pryce is the focus of the murders. Her child's body shows further inconsistencies—a fresh, half-inch burn on the outside of her right thumb, a swollen, rounded contusion on her right breast, horizontal stripes indented on the back of her left thigh. Frank finds the close-up of the leg markings. The edges of the impression are blurry, but it is clearly composed of straight, parallel lines. She concentrates on the pattern but it remains indecipherable.
Frank squints at what could be bruises mottling the girl's arms. Where the skin has blanched on the back of the arms, the bruising is more vivid. A couple contusions dot her legs. They all appear fresh. The ME cited cause of death as asphyxia resulting from manual strangulation, and Frank studies the telltale choke marks circling her neck. The bruising is too indistinct to determine if the perp choked her from the front or the rear. Frank finishes her sandwich while reading clinical descriptions of brutal vaginal and anal assaults.
Deciding to risk Gail's wrath, she signals for one more double, then bends her head back over the autopsy pictures. Lividity in the girl is pronounced posteriorly. The skin on the back of her torso and extremities is pale where contact pressure excluded the settling blood, yet the photos indicate anterior blanching on her torso as well. Her face and anterior extremities are unblanched. Frank checks the boy's lividity. His is completely anterior.
A picture forms in Frank's mind and she quickly commits it to paper. Noah, Gail, even her drink is forgotten as Frank immerses herself into the world of Ladeenia and Trevor Pryce. She will be a long time leaving them.
Chapter 9
When Frank walks into Gail's apartment, Gail swivels from her computer and removes her glasses. She says hello and offers her lips to Frank. Frank kisses her cheek, calculating how soon she can get back to her murder books.
'What came up?' Gail asks.
'A cold case, actually.'
'You stood me up for a cold case?'
'It's not just any case. It's one Noah's been working on for years. I've been meaning to get to it and finally opened it this afternoon. Once I started looking I got on a roll and couldn't stop. I needed to see it all at once, just like a fresh scene.'
Gail bites her lower lip.
'It's important,' Frank insists. 'A brother and a sister, six and nine. Jamie and Leslie were about six when Noah caught the case. It hit him hard. I'd just gotten promoted and couldn't help him with it.' Frank hefts a shoulder.
'I see. So you're helping him now.'
'Something like that.'
'Isn't that kind of like closing the barn door after the horse is out?'
'Meaning what?'
'Never mind.'
Gail turns back to the computer screen, but Frank justifies, 'It's still an open case. The parents moved up the coast but No still keeps in contact with them ...' She trails off, realizing her mistake. 'He worked it off and on when he could, but he couldn't get anywhere with it. Maybe I can see it with fresh eyes. See something he couldn't. In fact, would you look at this for me?'
Frank digs through her briefcase, producing an anterior autopsy photo of Ladeenia Pryce's body.
'Look at this blanching. My first thought was she'd been moved before lividity set, but see how it's only on the torso and a little on the upper thighs?'
Despite her indifference, professional curiosity makes Gail peek at the photo.
Frank explains, 'I'm thinking she was on her back but that there was something on top of her. A weight that caused the anterior blanching, because look at this.' Replacing the picture with a close-up, she points to the extensive pallor along the girl's backside. 'Do you think that could account for such a pattern?'
'It could.'
She shows Gail another photograph. 'This is the brother. I'm thinking the perp put him on top of her. Laid them face to face. See the blanching on her chest? And on her hip and thigh? Maybe that's where his legs draped
